Was thinking about the civ stage. Wasn't sure if I want to play a civ and thought about being like, nature or something. Then I thought, hey wait! what if everyone is nature. So follow me here...

Every turn one of the players sets their civ aside (their civ will make no progress that turn) and picks up the mantle of Mother Nature for that turn. This player gets to inflict one "nature event" on each of the other players in the game. Their civ is not affected by these traumatic natural events, but they also make no forward progress that turn either. This job rotates from player-to-player as each turn ends.

Seemed neat because it gives everyone some space to get those "mighty god" tendencies out of their systems while also ensuring that nobody can do everything exactly they way they want (to allow for some organic things to occur). Thoughts?

Well, the poles aren't as big a deal as you might think. Point locations (like cities, for instance) would just be a map pin placed at a specific coordinates. Anything drawn on the map would just be areas, no line work needed. And it really isn't difficult to load the image up into Google Earth to see what it looks like (and if you have Pro you can even calculate areas). Plus, keep in mind the polar areas are the least populated regions.

Oh right, and I'm voting for 8.

Edit: Here is an interesting map showing the distortion of an equirectangular porjection, if that helps.

Yes, but it will be harder to keep everything lined up. See, the files are all vector based. If I mix and match then they'd be from to separate files with no real way to stitch them together except in post-processing.If we stick to one map then I can zoom in anywhere on the map and everything will be exactly lined up. So it's a trade-off between detail and style. Hopefully that makes sense?

Edit: Here is an example of how far I can zoom in: http://imgur.com/a/aKaWM In the last picture, the smaller island to the left of the peninsula is 1.12 miles long. Obviously the details aren't as fine in that level of zoom, but If one does make maps that far in, you'd probably just add the extra details in.